SLEEPLESS NIGHTS

Chapter 1

“This is the last one, Professor.” “Good. Shove her in with the others. We have to move them to another laboratory by tonight.”

An illegal process taking place in the middle of the night under a full moon. The dark alleyway filled with nothing but the sounds of scampering rats, cries of anger and pain, the chucking of something heavy, growling, grunts, and an idle engine.

Various-colored eyes were seen glaring back through steel caged bars. Howls were initiated. Chills were sent up one man’s spine as he helped push a cage into the back of an ambulance. He looked up at the sky while rubbing his arms down.

He asked nervously, “S-shouldn’t we call it quits for the night before the cops come?”

A man dressed in a long white lab coat turned to the laborer. His bi maroon red and golden yellow eyes glared at him. His silvery blonde hair basked in the moonlight. He threw in a smirk as well to try to ease the laborer’s tension.

“Sir,” the person in the lab coat started, also known as ‘Professor’. “Why do you think we are doing this at night? Hmm?” He started walking towards him bit by bit until his back hit the brick wall behind him.

“Umm…uh…” he stuttered. “Professor Koizumi! It is because you do not want to get caught in the daylight- right?”

Professor Koizumi smiled. “Good,” he said, patting his head. “Of course, I knew you had such intelligence to be able to answer that. To put it simply, my experiments with these wolves would all be put to waste if I was caught now.

At night, all of the police forces must be cramming somewhere in their offices on much tougher cases than try to crack me down. I am a busy man, you know. It is hard to try to plan such high scaled plans such as this.”

The man gulped and nodded immediately as an answer.

“Good, then get in,” Professor Koizumi commanded as the other went to the driver’s seat. He himself made it to the passenger’s seat, leaving the one who spoke out loud to climb into the back along with the ‘experiments’. The back doors closed.

The engine revved up to only speed away into Tokyo’s light-lit streets.

As the ambulance drove along up a highway near the mountainside, inside the ambulance, the man was getting nervous. Hiromi Seishiro, a 25-year old young man who dropped out of college for possession of marijuana, single, bad-tempered, but a genius sweetheart who had big plans for the future.

He was born in Japan to his French mother and Japanese father whom loved each other very much. Seishiro was often made fun of when he was a child for being born with girly features, green eyes, and light brown hair.

Seishiro witnessed his mother’s own death when he was only seven years old when a white van “accidentally” curved to the curb and hit her.

It would seem that Seishiro’s father was actually the current leader of the yakuza, and his wife was the victim of it. Seishiro renounced his own father’s name when she died and decided to move out of Kyoto to Tokyo to start a new beginning.

Unfortunately, ties of the yakuza kept him bound to Japan and eventually, to his failure. Seishiro is only fortunate enough to be able to afford a housing, food, and clothes because of Professor Koizumi Tenka. Tenka knew of Seishiro’s history and decided to hunt him down since he knew a college dropout would be desperate for a few extra yen. The pay was ¥500000 an hour on weekdays. It was a secret job at a top secret lab with a top secret mission led by Professor Koizumi.

This guy was as mysterious as ‘mysterious’ gets! Professor Koizumi had strange-colored eyes to begin with. It was due to a genetic “malfunction” as he called it. Koizumi would rarely talk or answer to anybody working in the laboratory with him besides with Seishiro. Many say that he was “the unlucky” one. He would also wear sunglasses most of the time- even when the sun wouldn’t show. It was probably to hide those eyes of his. They were the eyes of a foreigner’s- a devilish foreigner. Some people in the lab still think that Professor Koizumi is the devil in disguise.

As the ambulance moved along swiftly and bending up the winding curves, the last cage that was thrown into the back snarled. Whimpered. Cried almost. Seishiro took out his lighter to see what was going on until the full moon illuminated the sight for him to see in the back of the vehicle.

It was cruel, cold, and dark. The sight was as if someone slapped on a brush full of black paint to cover up Michelangelo’s angels at the Sistine Chapel. About twenty steel bar cages were packed in close together tightly in two the corners in the back. The last cage occupied the third, and Seishiro, the fourth corner.

Seishiro sat in his corner with his chin resting upon his knees, staring back at the caged animal. The eyes the color of a clean, starry night, snow white fur, and a pained, lifeless look on its face. They all spelt out the word, “death”.

“Hey…” Seishiro started, “Are you going to give up like this? Don’t you have any family or friends?”

The animal picked up its head to reveal a wolf looking straight back at him. Seishiro continued,

“How’d you get captured anyway? Poaching is illegal. If you were smart, you would’ve taken the Alpha male role and saved everybody. But you’re as useless as I am, aren’t you?”

The ears folded back and a low growl came.

“Oh, so you can understand me? That’s good. No one understands me anymore- not ever since my mother died… My mother was a famous model in both France and Japan, you know. Dad seems to have forgotten all about her ever since she passed away.

“But that passing was definitely…no accident. Since she was so damn famous, of course she’d easily be targeted by all of Dad’s enemies! It’s his entire fault that she died! What did he do when she was lying in her casket? He left to answer a phone call! Who the fuck does he think he is? How can he do that to her? It was her final moments to be recognized on this earth, and he left! Fuck!

“I…loathe him so much…”

The animal’s eyes went from anger to sympathetic. It howled. Ear-piercing. Tenka covered his ears as the animal went on, catching the attention of all the other animals as well- which were all wolves. They howled along with the white wolf.

“Sh-shut up already before the professor comes back here…!!” Seishiro tried to yell over their voices.

Suddenly, a thrust from Seishiro’s side of the ambulance came. Seishiro flew from his corner to the other, smacking right into the white wolf’s cage. He winced. Another thrust came, but from the white wolf’s side now! Seishiro was smacked back against where he was sitting before with the cage in his arms. He screamed out in pain, cried, and cussed a million words before the ambulance stopped along the way.

The back doors opened to reveal Professor Koizumi and the driver. He looked angry. Seishiro gulped with the cage still in his arms.

“P-Professor Koizumi!” he yelled.

“What are you doing to my precious experiment?” Koizumi asked, using his middle finger to push his glasses back up the bridge of his nose.

“I…I…” Seishiro tried saying, but only ended up stuttering when the driver took the cage from his arms. “W-what are you going to do to him?”

A clicking sound made from a gun cocking was heard in the silence. Professor Koizumi pointed it to the wolf. “I’m going to shoot it,” he said.

Seishiro’s eyes widened as he quickly stood up from his spot and jumped out of the back. He grabbed hold of the cage as well. “B-but why?” he asked. “I thought the reason why we came all the way up here was to move them somewhere else? All of them? And what was up with that reckless driving?!”

The driver shrugged.

Professor Koizumi turned his gun on Seishiro. “Hiromi Seishiro-kun, I would be pleased if you would kindly let go of that cage,” he told him calmly.

Seishiro turned to him slowly. “P-Professor…?” he asked.

“This is a white wolf that was responsible for all the other ones acting up just before. The reason why there was such reckless driving displayed was because of it.

“White wolves are rare amongst litters of normal gray wolves because they represent the danger they can put us humans in. They are born leaders who are the closest to Kaguya-hime. You’ve heard of that story haven’t you?”

“W-what are you talking about...? Professor Koizumi, you’re going way too fast for me to digest all of this…” Seishiro chuckled nervously. Well, it’s true! All of a sudden, he decided to spring all these facts on me when I’m not even prepared! Damn. I knew there was something up with his mysterious personality.

“Kaguya-hime needed a messenger to learn of how the emperor was doing ever since she left the earth. Although she declined his proposal, she secretly did fancy him. So when she left earth, she left behind her feathered robe for him to burn as a message to her in the heavens- which is the “hagoromo”.

“The hagoromo is always in the form of a different being, whether it be a human or an animal they’re all the same! Kaguya-hime is just angry at the emperor for not being able to save her from the heaven’s people. She wants revenge on him. This is why this wolf was created.

“This wolf is Kaguya-hime’s most precious possession on earth, which is why I captured it to study. Interesting, isn’t it? How her DNA is structured to Kaguya-hime’s liking which allows her to communicate with her.”

“Then…what are you interested in…?”

The professor chuckled and then broke out into a maniacal laughter- with his gun still pointing at us.

I always knew he was a bit crazy in the head…

“Put the pieces together already, Hiromi!” he yelled at me. “I am going to bring Kaguya-hime down here on earth. I will wed her! Haha! Brilliant, isn’t it?”

I and the driver both stared at the professor. Kaguya-hime is just a myth! A fairy tale! She never existed! This guy…has definitely been dropped too many times on his head as a baby.

“Umm…you know…” I started, trying to inch closer to the professor with my hand out. “We can get you some help you know, Professor. You’ve probably been reading way too many manga’s. Come, let us take you…back to the laboratory, alright…?”

I didn’t expect what was happening next- but I suspected it for a bit.

Bang!

The professor opened fire on me. Luckily, it only grazed my left arm, but it left me wounded and crying out in pain. I stayed where I stood to look back at him.

The driver boy behind me panicked with the cage in his hands. He looked back from me to the professor and to the wolf. Finally he opened his mouth and said, “P-Professor Koizumi, I-I don’t think this is such a good idea anymore…”

Professor Koizumi cocked his gun at the driver this time. “Just shut up and get back into the car,” he told him.

“Eep! Y-yes, sir!”

What a wuss.

“Can’t we just stop while we’re ahead?” I shouted back at him. “If we let the wolves go, then maybe Kaguya-hime won’t unleash her wrath on all of us!” Especially you, you dick.

Professor Koizumi scoffed and flashed his eyes at me. “I’m tired of your preaching, Hiromi Seishiro. Have a nice trip,” he said, pointing the gun at me now, “in the afterlife.”

Bang!